


Portrait of Us

by Blackberry_Summer



Category: Whyborne and Griffin - Jordan L. Hawk
Genre: Fluff, M/M, WAFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:07:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22997413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackberry_Summer/pseuds/Blackberry_Summer
Summary: Griffin and Whyborne have their picture taken (eventually) by Iskander.
Relationships: Griffin Flaherty/Percival Whyborne
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Portrait of Us

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a scene in _Maelstrom_ in which Whyborne looks at the photo and notes it was taken the month before.

Griffin 

After I brought the coffee upstairs to the study, I laid it on a table before the couch and threw open a window. The morning air was already showing promise of what was sure to be a warm day, but at the moment it was still pleasant, with a mild breeze that carried the ocean’s scent. Stepping over to the hearth, I cast my eyes across the small collection of framed photographs that already adorned the mantelpiece: Whyborne had neatly set there a portrait of Heliabel, his mother, taken when she was young and in the bloom of health, though tellingly there were no photos of the rest of his family.

I tightened my dressing gown, eyes falling readily to my favorite among the grouping, a copy of the photo I’d placed inside my Ival’s pocketwatch to remind him of me, of us. Taken almost two years ago on the Widdershins waterfront, it was currently the only photo we had of just the two of us, and it was a good one. Whyborne stood on the left, wearing his usual dark suit, hands folded before him as he faced the camera. I had managed an arm thrown behind him, hand clasping the rail of the pier, although it was easy enough to imagine it rested in the small of his back. I looked carefree, considering the worries of the day, and appeared the far more easygoing of the pair of us, wearing a striped shirt and straw hat. I had somehow persuaded Whyborne to remove his own hat for the picture, wanting to capture the wild misbehavior of his hair in contrast to his buttoned-up clothing. But his face—his beautiful face, capable of such encapsulating expressionlessness at times—was alight with a glow of pleasure that afternoon, specifically at having been asked by me to stand for a portrait.

My heart ached to think of it, even as I felt a familiar rush of love at the sight of his happy smile. He’d been so unused to being loved, and worse, so used to being unloved. “Ival,” I whispered, touching the glass as if to stroke his cheek.

The final frame held a group photograph, taken last October in the Yukon. I supposed it counted as a family portrait of sorts, as my brother Jack knelt at the edge of the group, arms thrown about the neck of a panting sled dog. Jack...we had exchanged letters since then, and I believed that our relationship could be whole one day. Whyborne encouraged it, which was something, considering my brother’s misadvised actions could have resulted in Ival’s death under unluckier circumstances. The man I’d married never failed to amaze me with his courage and compassion, his strong heart so carefully protected until called upon.

Today’s portrait would be different. Iskander had agreed to come to the house and take several pictures of Ival and myself together as man and...man? Man and husband? As we were, in any event, when we were at home. Nothing that would make my Ival blush, of course, but something that we might place on the mantelpiece here beside more ambiguous mementos, a portrait in which I might place my hand upon his in a manner that left no doubt of what he meant to me. Ival. A smile curved my lips as I thought of him still asleep in our bed. Ever a late riser on Sundays, he would need to be roused soon in order to ready himself for the portraits, and before the coffee I’d made had a chance to grow cold.

~

“Ival.” I brushed the back of my hand against his cheek, faintly stubbled and pleasantly rough against my touch. He rolled away from me immediately, pulling up the covers so that only his forehead and spiky hair were visible. “Whyborne!”

“Come back to bed,” he mumbled thickly, and god, but the huskiness of his voice, unused since last night, sent a coil of desire knotting low in my belly, to say nothing of the effect of his next words: “Come back to bed and sleep with me, or come back and wake me up properly.”

I raised an eyebrow; taken the right way, the choices offered were one and the same, but I couldn’t seem to find the phrasing. “My dear,” I tried again. “I asked Iskander to take a private portrait of us, but the state you’re in may be rather more intimate than I’ve prepared him for.” I knew he still lay naked beneath the covers, as I’d held him to me all night long.

One dark eye appeared above the coverlet, grazing over me with an air of cross appraisal. “You’re no better,” he asserted, sounding more awake now. “Why you want a portrait of my ugly self at all is a mystery, but if you intend to be photographed in your dressing gown, poor Iskander will have words with Christine about the company she keeps.”

I snorted in amusement. “Indeed. I’ve made coffee and left it in the study, with sugar there, as you like. Perhaps a cup might help you rise while I ready myself, my dear?”

Whyborne 

Sitting up abruptly, I seized Griffin’s wrist before he might jump back. “If you ready yourself properly, I’ll have no trouble rising,” I said in a rush, before sleepiness could wear off enough that I would be mortified by my own bold words. I pulled him down into a kiss, hoping he wouldn’t see the color in my cheeks or that, in fact, the relevant part of my anatomy had already risen at the sight of him.

After a moment’s resistance, he melted against me, sucking fiercely on my tongue and taking me into his arms. Strong hands roamed along my waist to my thighs, fingers digging in with a greed I couldn’t believe was all for me. I pushed back against him readily. “Ival,” he whispered when I finally released him for breath. “My dear, my love...we don’t have much time.”

“Why did you schedule this accursed portrait for Sunday?” My only day off from the museum—strange to think I’d once resented this enforced time away from work—and one that Griffin generally joined me in, putting aside case work from the detective agency he ran so that we might sleep in, make leisurely love to one another in the mid-morning hours, followed by a lazy breakfast and, more often than not, more time enjoying each other in bed before properly readying ourselves for the day and doing the shopping and other errands. Last Sunday, Griffin had taken me to a tailor in anticipation of today’s photos, nudging me to purchase an otherwise presentable grey vest flecked with dark burgundy threads that he said would bring out my dark eyes. When I’d pointed out that such a thing would hardly matter in a photograph, he merely smiled at me in the particular manner he’d learned would get him his way in anything. Worse still, he’d also persuaded me to buy a matching striped tie that he swore was actually quite subdued.

I ought to subdue him with it right now, I thought, casting about the room with my gaze for the offending garment. Bound about his wrists, it would be both useful and attractive, not to mention ruined for wear afterwards, and I would have no choice but to wear something more suitable.

“Ival,” Griffin groaned against my throat, which he’d been fervently nibbling while I was occupied with churlish feelings of being hard done by. Such thoughts flew away from me now as I seized his face between my hands, forcing him to look me in the eye. God, what he did to me; I felt lost in the sight of him, in the burning ache of my own skin. Indeed, any thought at all escaped me until I pushed his dressing gown from his shoulders to discover him naked underneath.

“You went downstairs like this?” I gasped. “What if someone had come to the door?”

“I wouldn’t answer it,” he said gruffly, shucking the robe to the floor and flinging himself on top of me so that we both tumbled to the bed. “I’d come back up here and fuck you senseless instead.”

God. My stomach clenched, balls tightening at his language, at his rough need. “Griffin.” My Griffin. My husband. The black pearl of my wedding ring caught the light streaming in our window as I gripped his chestnut hair, my eyes following the golden highlights’ gleam in my fingers.

“Mm?” he grunted, pausing long enough to smile down at me. One cheek dimpled and his green eyes sparkled devilishly. “You want something, my dear?”

“Only for you...to do what you said,” I stammered, feeling my face redden. Curse the man, that wouldn’t be enough. He’d want to hear me repeat his words back to him. At the lift of his brow, I blurted, “Fuck me. Fuck me as you would if someone had dared knock this early on a Sunday and instead of answering you ran back upstairs to me—”

Whatever else I might have babbled was lost under the crush of his mouth, the force of his body pressing me down into the bed. Had I wanted to tie his hands? As if I could when he was like this, ravenous and uncontrollable. I might never understand what he saw in me that caused him to react with this hunger, but I would be eternally grateful for it. Our bodies rose and fell against one another, the hardness of his cock almost exquisitely unbearable rubbing against my own, driving need closer to desperation as his mouth marked my throat, my shoulders and chest. 

Griffin’s thigh pushed between my legs and I opened for him, throwing my hands over my head when he reached for the little pot of petroleum jelly beside the bed. A question formed on his face as he sat back, the weight of him just heavy enough to hold me in place. “Are you sure, my dear?” he murmured, tracing one of my nipples with the tip of his finger. “Earlier, you said—”

Oh. That he should ready himself. I shook my head vehemently. His body on top of mine, his raw hunger, had given me other ideas, and all I wanted now was to feel him inside me. “Fuck me senseless,” I gasped, bucking up against him.

He held my wrists pinned together in one hand, the fingers of the other working inside me, preparing me for the thick member bobbing against his stomach. He looked so beautiful above me, pupils dilated with lust and his soft, shining hair falling into his perfect face. God, I loved him, and loved the feel of him against me, and then he was pushing inside me, head dropping so he could bite at my lips as we rocked together feverishly. “Ival,” he moaned, and the raw desire in his voice made me writhe beneath him, living only in the friction of his body against my aching cock. Encouraged by my moans, Griffin slid a hand between us and wrapped it around my member, which required but the barest touch for me to spend forcefully. I arched up to shout around a mouthful of his shoulder, need cresting and breaking over me until I thought I’d been pulled from my very body, cast out into the tumbling void. He followed quickly, falling heavily atop my chest after his release.

A beat throbbed, two, and my breath returned, along with the sensation of his glorious, naked heat and weight stretched out over me. “God,” I gasped.

A moment more passed before Griffin lifted his head and flashed me his impudent grin. “No, but I would have to be if I hope to make myself presentable before Iskander gets here.”

Griffin 

After cleaning us both up, I shaved carefully while Whyborne pulled on my dressing gown and stumbled out in search of the coffee I’d promised earlier. I had no faith it would still be hot, but I had to admit it gave me a small thrill of pleasure to see him struggling to find his footing. I had done that to him, his long limbs as unsteady as a colt’s.

Truly, there hadn’t been the time to spare, as I’d waked him as late as I thought I could. There was always time when he wanted me though, desire an irresistible sight on Ival’s beloved face. 

Glancing up at my reflection in the mirror, I was startled by the memory of myself much younger, readying myself for my first family portrait. Too young to shave then, I had nevertheless spent an unjustified amount of time before the mirror Ma and Pa had made sure I had on the wall behind my washbasin. Ma had laid out the clothes I was to wear and rubbed my head fondly before leaving me to it, and I had been desperate to make a good presentation.

“He’s a handsome boy, isn’t he?” I’d heard her saying to Pa, already washed, dressed, and at the breakfast table. He had merely grunted in response, less an aspersion on my looks than an acknowledgment of their superfluousness, especially compared with other, more useful traits such as being hard-working, cheerful, and god-fearing. 

I worked hard to be all three, but handsome? I’d looked into the mirror questioningly. I was too young to understand the feeling then as I would come to know it later on, but my mind had automatically run to Benjamin Walter, the neighbors’ boy. Perhaps in that moment I would not have said I found him handsome, but his face came to mind at the word, and I had been vaguely aware for some time that I liked to look at him. Benjamin’s features were often in my mind even then, played over idly as I went about my chores, though I had yet to understand that I...wanted something, that his existence in my life made me want something.

These thoughts, if they might be called such, were still unformed and peripheral. “Griffin will be beating the girls off with a stick before you know it,” Ma had asserted confidently, and my green eyes had widened in the mirror. The thought of beating anyone with a stick, let alone a girl—well, I’d known to be respectful before Pa had rescued me from the orphan line at the train depot. The notion of raising my hand, god forbid a stick, to another person was alarming and unpleasant. 

I had turned my attention to dressing myself in the small, neat suit Ma had purchased for the portrait, with the understanding that I would be wearing it to church from now on as well. I hadn’t minded; it was very fine, and fit me well. Giving my hair a final pass with the comb, I’d decided I was fit to be seen and had joined my adopted parents at the table to await the photographer. 

I wondered now where that family photograph was, if Ma had buried it in a drawer after my disgrace. Surely they hadn’t discarded it or thrown it on the fire? I sighed, pulling one last stroke of the razor down my cheek. I’d been so proud that day that they wanted this memory of me, that they loved me as their own child.

Whyborne leaned in the door, cup in hand, my dressing gown at least six inches too short on his long legs. “Hurry up,” he said, gesturing toward me with the cup and smirking. “One would think you were trying to make us late, darling.”

Whyborne 

I’d long enjoyed Griffin’s tendency to shave in the nude before me, but the promise of coffee proved too alluring, dazed as I was from the morning’s activities. Without something to wake my mind up, I likely _would_ end up embarrassing us both by putting my pants on backwards, or wearing mismatching socks.

Griffin’s dressing gown was a poor fit, but I made do since my own was in the room we maintained as a fiction for the cleaning woman, sleeping one night there and the next in Griffin’s bed, which I preferred.

Pushing my damnably unruly hair from my eyes, I found the pot in the study and poured a cup, adding one sugar and then wincing at the cooled temperature. Well, sacrifices must be made, I told myself firmly. My legs were still not quite recovered from the thorough exercising Griffin had given me only minutes before, but it was not to be helped.

Knowing approximately the amount of time it would take for my love to clear his face of morning bristles, I wandered over to the mantelpiece to inspect the photographs already stood there. There was one of Mother, of course, and the one from the day on the waterfront. Griffin’s insouciant smile dominated the picture’s focus, at least for me. He was so beautiful, his body and bearing in contrast to the nervous and gawky figure I cut beside him. How had I let him convince me to put aside my hat, displaying my worst feature so aggressively? My hair was standing up in all directions, while his was neatly covered by the straw hat he’d worn that day, the lout.

The other photo was even worse, at least if one were looking at me, which seemed unlikely given the amount of choice. The entire expedition that Griffin’s brother Jack had taken with him back to Hoarfrost had been in the picture, including Christine on my right, looking respectably businesslike. Predictably, Griffin glowed, his arm thrown companionably about my shoulders, a happy grin on his face. The same grin graced his brother’s face, toward the edge of the group; the two bore a strong resemblance in any case, but particularly in their expressions. I glanced again at myself, in the dead center of the photograph by some ill luck. Bundled into a thick parka, gloves, and boots, I looked absolutely miserable, what I’d hoped was an expression of steely determination having revealed itself as sullen resignation, in the end. At least my hair was hidden beneath the enormous fur hood of my coat, and my unfortunately puce-colored scarf appeared merely grey. I’d uncrossed my arms at the last moment at a word of advice from Iskander, the photographer, and they hung awkwardly at my sides as though I might lurch forward out of the photograph and throttle anyone who spent too long in contemplation of the blighted composition. 

Sighing, I leaned against the door of our bedroom and appreciated the view for a moment before politely suggesting my husband make haste. For some reason, he threw a wash towel at me.

Griffin 

“My dear, I’m so sorry!” I gasped, possibly even more shocked than Whyborne as he stood there stammering through the wet towel draped over his head. I hadn’t truly intended for the playful throw to land, but with an unerring instinct for mishap, poor Ival had actually ducked into the room, _towards_ the flying linen. I steered him now into a chair set before the washbasin, pulling the towel away and dropping apologetic kisses on his wild hair. He resembled nothing so much as a flustered goose. God, but I loved him.

I could see in the mirror’s reflection that he was looking up at me directly, his expression still more startled than anything else. “Good god,” he said, then, turning to face the mirror, “Good god! The state of me!”

“It’s hardly the doing of the towel,” I observed, tenderly blotting his skin dry.

“No,” he agreed glumly. “I can’t see why you’d want a portrait with me in it. My hair—”

“Looks as if you’ve been freshly fucked. Which you have.”

Whyborne’s face colored predictably at my language. “It always looks like this,” he grumbled peevishly. “And my ridiculous height and crooked nose—”

Crooked nose! My genuine surprise must have shown, because he paused long enough to look up at me again. “Your nose is perfect,” I insisted, gripping the back of his chair for balance as I leaned over to kiss the bridge of said nose. “You’re beautiful, Ival. Have you never noticed the looks you get when we go out?”

“I’m bizarre.” Whyborne scowled at his reflection. “They look at you, because you’re so handsome.”

A rueful smile passed over my reflection’s lips. That was the word Ma had used, and later, Benjamin had said as much also. As had Elliot, and any number of men and women in Chicago. I supposed there was no denying that I had generally been judged pleasing to look at, but feeling beautiful was far from the same thing as feeling loved, a fact I’d only realized after meeting a messy-haired doctor of philology.

“I love you and you’re perfect,” I assured, making an attempt at straightening his hair with my fingers. “But if you think I don’t see through this blatant attempt to further procrastinate, you must take me for a fool, my dear.”

Whyborne sulked. “I am not procrastinating! I simply don’t wish to have my picture taken.”

“Whyborne—”

“And now I must add a husband who assaults me with wet towels to my list of hardships,” he finished mournfully, but I knew him well enough to detect the teasing gleam in his eye.

“My poor love,” I soothed, casting about the room. “Where’s your new vest and tie?—oh! Of course.”

By the time I returned from his bedroom opposite mine, Whyborne had successfully shaven himself and run a comb through his hair at least once. “Your suit,” I offered cheerfully, hanging it on the closet door. “And look how much time you’ve saved, not having to wash your face.”

~

We dressed with enough haste that Whyborne didn’t even complain about the burgundy flecks in his vest, which as I’d predicted, complemented his eyes most favorably. My own suit was of a darker charcoal than his, offset with a blue vest and emerald tie that I knew to be his favorite. The colors we had chosen would not show up in the photograph, but it nevertheless pleased me to see us both looking so fine. We were fussing fondly with one another’s ties when Iskander knocked, and I threw Ival a mischievous wink. “On any other Sunday—”

“Scoundrel,” he muttered as I left to run down the stairs. 

“Not a moment too soon,” I said after greeting Iskander heartily and aiding him with bringing the equipment inside. “Whyborne’s likely to crawl out a window as it is.”

Iskander’s dark eyes widened in mock surprise. “I should set up in the garden, then, surely. Christine would never forgive me if I failed to commit it to film.”

“Very funny,” Whyborne sniffed, coming down the stairs with an air of wounded dignity. “For the record, I’m quite happy to be taking this portrait with Griffin today.”

“You are?” I affected a stunned expression. He certainly hadn’t said anything like it to me.

“Well,” he demurred, looking at the floor as he helped gather the equipment to bring upstairs to the study, “I was...looking again at the photo from the waterfront, while you were letting Iskander in. Earlier, I’d thought I looked awkward beside you, Griffin, and I suppose I do, but I remembered suddenly...how happy I was that you wanted a memento of being with me that day. And then how moved I was when you gave me the watch with the photo inside. I...I want to have more photos together, of course I do. Thank you for doing this for us, Iskander,” he added graciously.

“It’s my pleasure,” Iskander replied genially, eying the coffee pot I’d brought up well over an hour before. “I say, is that coffee?”

Whyborne 

I offered to make more coffee, as Griffin had taken an interest in Iskander’s camera and was thinking of acquiring one for his own work. I left them to set up and made my way down to the kitchen.

Saul, our marmalade cat, had crept back inside along with Iskander, and now berated me vocally for his empty food dish. “No mice this morning, hm?” I teased. When I scratched behind his ears he purred loudly, pushing his rumbling body against my legs. “Saul!” Would orange fur show up against my trousers in the photographs? It seemed likely given the contrast.

Feeling cross again, I put up the coffee and sat down at the table to brush at my legs while holding Saul off from further mischief by flapping a dish towel in his direction. He must think me mad, I thought, before deciding that I must be if I was worried about the cat’s opinion of my sanity.

“You’ve had portraits done before?” Iskander’s voice drifted down the stairs, followed by Griffin’s warm tones. Fondness suffused me at the sound, even before I thought to pay attention to his words.

“A few times, yes. When I was younger, and then more recently with Whyborne. Nothing as personal as what I’d like, yet.”

When he was younger? I wondered if he meant when he was a child on the farm, or as a young man working for the Pinkertons. I would have to ask him later; after several years of intimacy, I still craved to know every detail of his life, of him. Not that he wasn’t entitled to his privacy, of course, but I found myself hungry for every piece of himself Griffin was willing to share with me. I was hopelessly in love.

“I suppose Whyborne has also,” I heard Iskander say.

I thought grimly of the portraits of my youth, of being dressed and groomed meticulously by Mother or Miss Emily, only for my older brother Stanford to tear or otherwise soil my clothing at the last minute, our sister Guinevere taking his side if I dared try to explain myself to Father. Looking back on it, I wondered if perhaps Father would have been less angry had I pretended to have caused the damage myself; that at least would have fit the image of rough-and-tumble masculinity Niles Whyborne expected of his sons. As it was, the injustice had caused hot tears to streak down my face as poor Miss Emily struggled to remedy my appearance. Inevitably, I’d wound up standing between my siblings in a fresh suit, eyes puffy and hair sprung free from the confines of macassar oil, which could only be expected to hold out so long. Stanford had mocked me mercilessly for my miserable-looking face in portraits, even more so once I’d outgrown him by half a foot. 

My trousers cleaned of fur, I carefully avoided Saul’s affection as I placed a bit of last night’s leftovers in his dish and fetched the coffee upstairs. “Here we are,” I announced brightly. “At least one of us knows how to make a hot pot of coffee.” Griffin looked up from the lens he’d been inspecting and laughed, the sound moving through me like a fresh ocean breeze, carrying away the last of my bad mood.

Griffin 

My heart gladdened at Whyborne’s improved temper. Iskander’s questions had reminded me of the childhood photographs I’d seen scattered about the informal parlor of Whyborne House, my poor Ival squashed between his siblings wearing an expression that led me to suspect he was being pinched by Stanford as the flash went off. Heartbreaking was the word I’d use to describe these captured moments of Whyborne’s childhood, even more so as I knew only too well how easy it was to coax laughter from him when he felt safe. For all he’d suffered, Whyborne wasn’t really one to brood.

God, he shone when he was happy. The fire in him that I’d always sensed in some way was visible to me now, the shadowsight a lingering gift of my connection with the Mother of Shadows, and Whyborne burned vividly with the flame. I wished the vision could be captured on Iskander’s film, but of course it was, in its way. The blaze I saw was Whyborne, and he was it: He couldn’t help but glow with it.

Iskander had come prepared, and we took a number of different poses as the morning wore on. In one, Whyborne wanted to be the one seated in an armchair while I stood behind—some insecurity about his height, I was sure. I loved how tall he was, loved wrapping my arms around his waist and looking up at him when we returned home at the end of the day. After all this time, he still looked at me as though I were a Christmas present that might be snatched away and given to someone else. In any event, he’d sat and crossed his legs at the knee, a book folded over in his lap as he reached up to join our left hands so that our rings, the pearl in mine white and his black, were plainly visible. Whyborne beamed as the photograph was taken, and I’m sure my own face reflected his pleasure.

As we settled onto the couch together for a final series, Whyborne ran his hands through his hair in an umpteenth futile attempt to make it lie flat. I shared a grin with Iskander, who remarked, “Christine theorizes that Whyborne’s hair is part of his, how did she put it? ‘Unaccountable appeal.’”

I laughed behind my hand as Whyborne nearly choked. “‘Appeal?’” he sputtered, horrified.

“My dear, the offending term was ‘unaccountable,’” I posited gently.

Iskander shrugged. “Yes. Clearly, she’s immune, but seemed quite certain that Whyborne’s generally rumpled air was suggestive of being freshly—” Here he broke off, his ears coloring darkly with embarrassment.

“Awoken?” I suggested, taking pity. A good thing, too, as Whyborne had finally taken Iskander’s meaning and was turning a shade indicative of imminent apoplexy. “Steady on,” I murmured, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. My husband. As I gazed up at him fondly, Ival’s coloring returned to normal. Crossing his long legs toward me and shifting closer, he dropped a possessive hand to my knee. 

“Oh, really!” he muttered as Iskander disappeared behind the camera. “I don’t know why I put up with you at all.”

“Because I ensure you have the cleanest face in Widdershins?” I asked innocently. He turned abruptly to meet my eyes and for a moment I expected a rebuke, but instead Ival burst into sudden, surprised laughter, his well-loved features transformed into something even more beautiful. The flash exploded in front of us.

“I think that’s a good one,” Iskander said, straightening and stretching his back. When I was able to tear my lovestruck gaze from Whyborne long enough to meet Iskander’s eyes, he shook his head and said, “I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

Whyborne 

Griffin followed me into my room after Iskander had gone, watching me in silence as I divested myself of coat, vest and tie. “We still have time to do the shopping, although I suppose we might eat out if you prefer?” I asked, looking at him in the mirror as I struggled with my cufflinks.

“If you like,” he agreed languidly, lounging back on my bed in a manner that could only be considered suggestive. My eyes followed the shape of his shoulders in the mirror’s reflection, my mouth going suddenly dry. Had I just thought him merely suggestive? Griffin’s very existence was a singular assault on my damnably wanton body.

“It occurs to me that I may owe you the restoration of a large part of our Sunday routine.”

Turning to face him at last, I rasped, “You owe me nothing; I love you. I’m sorry I was difficult this morning. I do want the portraits, very much.”

Griffin, leaning back on his elbows and idly swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, favored me with a sunny smile. “I believe that last one in particular may take pride of place on the mantelpiece.”

He watched me cross the room, green eyes never leaving my face even when I pushed his knees apart to stand between. “Darling,” I whispered softly.

Sitting up faster than I would have thought possible, Griffin grasped my arms and pulled me against himself. “Ival,” he growled, and we fell together, caught in the eternity of the moment.


End file.
